~ About Amanda ~

Raised in rural Virginia with a soil scientist father whose main passions included cooking, fishing, hunting and agriculture, Amanda Simpson was plunged head first into the world of food before she knew any better. The motto of her childhood house was: “You have to try it. You don’t have to like it.” Her father was her first creative cooking inspiration, as well. An Army trained chef, the man never used a recipe in his life. His love of exotic foods and cooking guess work encouraged his daughter to experiment with food and its creation at an early age.

As soon as she was legally allowed to work, she applied to every restaurant in town. Even as a bus girl, she hung out in the kitchen with the cooks.

Driven by a need to explore new places and her love of the French language, she chose to attend Louisiana State University, where she studied French, Swahili and Sociology. The move to Baton Rouge did more than open her mind; it opened her palate to a new host of flavors. She spent the next 8 years working in restaurants, training and growing as a chef.

LSU is also where she met web developer and best friend, Tyler Durrett. Their great friendship gave birth to What We’re Eating; this off-beat and often off-colored take on the food Amanda cooks.

After more than a decade working in restaurants, she switched gears in 2007 and garnered a personal chef position in Rancho Santa Fe, CA. The plethora of fresh produce available year round in California changed her entire perspective on food and cooking, and not long after, FoodPornDaily was born. Its success allowed her to become a full-time recipe developer and food pornographer in 2009.

She continues to live in San Diego where she enjoys all that beach life can bring: jogging, biking, boogie boarding and, most importantly, drooling over the year-round array of local produce at the farmer’s market down the street.